Giving Gifts

What's the best you ever received?  Was it a new bike?  A car?  How about that 8-track stereo you can been wanting for so long (oh, that was me!)?

I've spent the past 2 days in and out of the ER with my daugher.  They thought she might have appendicitis.  They would observe her, test her, send her home with an appointment to come back.  What a night, day and night!  She is okay.  It was a virus that had swollen the lymph glands in her intestines and often mimics appendicitis.

Not the most fun way to spend your Labor Day weekend - for any of us!  Well, at least she got the pain killers.

I,  on the other hand, read and listened to the drama going on around me.  People who had sudden illnesses.  Folks in motorcycle accidents.  Domestic dramas.  Accidents.  Nothing that anyone planned.

My heart went out to them.  They needed something.  Some needed only medical care - like us.  But many needed something far beyond medical expertise.

The obvious answer is Christ.  But it was more.

They needed Hope. 

Not one person planned on being in that hospital.  No one plans those sort of things.

No one plans to be an abusive parent.  No one plans to be strung-out on drugs.  No one plans to be an alcoholic.  No one plans to have a seizure.  Or fall.  Or fail.

People all around us need Hope.  Hope that though their life is not what they planned, there can be something different for them.

We give so much in our society.  Food.  Clothing. 

But what about love?  A smile?  Acceptance?   Forgiveness?  And most importantly, hope?

What gift have you given to someone lately?

Now, the Neurologist's Report

It has taken a few days - okay a week - to gain perspective on the past month.  Thanks for all the prayers, dear friends.

So, the Neurologist's report.  Dr. Abigail Collins - our second favorite Pediatric Neuro (Dr. G Steve Miller will always be first!) came face-to-face with a miracle.  Her PA met with us first for all the basics.  Then he took his report and a copy of Ashley's CT Scans and new MRI to consult with Dr. Collins.

On stage

As they returned to the room, Dr Collins was saying, "Amazing!  This is just amazing!  Have you seen her MRI?  It is so Amazing!"   We had not had a detailed explanation in years and, frankly, memorizing MRI reports is no longer a priority.  I had decided that a new priority was empowering Ashley to make informed decisions on her healthcare.  She needed to hear and see what her brain was doing and how it had survived.

With her Cousin - Children love her

Dr. Collins then pulled up the images on the computer.  She indicated the primary point of the stroke, the arterial branches that were affected and then explained what the missing parts of her brain controlled: inference, muscle coordination and other things that got lost in the translation.  "Amazing" kept being interjected - "amazing she walks and talks;  amazing how can accomplish so  many tasks;  amazing how she reads." 

4-wheeling in the San Juan Nat'l Forest

And we heard once again: "if she had been an Adult, she would be either vegetative or dead."

At Disney World

After being home just a few days, the printed Neurologist report came.  It is filled with basic stuff and then words like, "nondysmorphic, normocephalic, atraumatic with anicertic, noninjected sclerae."  Huh?   I was relieved she read she had normal mucous membrances.  And bowel sounds.  Then bunches of numbers about reflexes and coordination testing and future plans.

I read the report - dry reading for sure - and all I could hear in my soul, "Amazing!  Just Amazing!  How her brain has rewired!  Amazing!"

Going into Surgery

Yup.  Amazing.  Amazing, she is alive.  Amazing, she walks.  Amazing, she talks.  Amazing that the original diagnosis was so wrong.  Amazing that man is so limited in their foresight.

I learned lately that Hope is the most important gift you can ever give a person.  Hope that God hears them.  Hope that things will be better.  Hope for tomorrow.  Hope that what they see today is not the end.  I watched Ashley look at her MRI and I saw hope.  She understood her brain damage.  But not once, not for one second did she hear "disabled", she heard the most beautiful word:

Amazing!

New Perspective

In the light of day, things look better.
In the light of day, hope emerges.
In the light of day we can see the hand of God
And know that his love grows brighter
In the Light of Day.